For the Lunar (Chinese and Korean) New Year I will be in Beijing! What does this have to do with being a dual citizen you ask? Well if you don't already know, to enter The Peoples Republic of China you must have a visa for entry no matter what your visit is for or where you hail from (yes I just said hail from). I have already booked my plan ticket to Beijing for Feb 13-16th and found accommodation for the three nights and so today I went to apply for my visa.
Applying for a Chinese tourist visa or L visa was extremely easy. I found out that I could no longer go directly to the Chinese Embassy or Consulate and that I had to acquire the visa through a designated travel agent because of some knew rule in place, so I found out of a place I could go where a friend of a friend got their visa. Acquiring the visa really is just a way the government can make some money as there are no real reasons behind it an they choose the price each country will pay for their visas, they discriminate. As I had knew prior, Americans must pay a premium for their visas although it is supposed to be the same price for any kind of visa for Americans: single entry, double entry, multiple, 6 month single and double, as well as 1 year single double or multi. Well this is only the case when you go through the embassy but since you cant do that anymore (at least in Korea) the travel agent charges different prices. I figured I would get a one year multi entry visa as I plan on going back to China later on but found out I was not eligible since my Korean residency card expires in 11 months from now and the embassy would see this and deny my year visa so the next best thing is a 6 month visa. After all the fees from the embassy and travel agent it would have cost me 140,000 won for a double entry visa with my American passport but luckily for me I also have an Israeli passport which allowed me the same thing for only 65,000 won.
All I needed to get the visa was to bring my passports to the travel agent with my residency card and a passport photo which I got before going in the subway station. (The subways have automatic photo booths that are used for all official photo taking: passport, id card, licenses etc. Very convenient, quick, cheap and easy.) The visa has a 4 day turn around and I will be picking it up on Monday. Needless to say I am extremely excited to go to Beijing and spend the Chinese New Year there, its supposed to be crazy!
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment